creative technology

Performative glove

Description

Dec 2016

A fun exploratory project done with artist friends as a proof-of-concept.

A prototype of a glove meant to be worn by an actor to control a network of WiFi-connected smart props. The glove contains four finger flex sensors, a Sparkfun APDS-9960 gesture sensor, an OLED screen and an EspressoLite ESP8266 controller.

The OLED screen provides feedback to the actor on his hand gestures, e.g. whether it is a left swipe, or up, down, right. In addition, it can detect a ‘near’ and ‘far’ swipe which means whether the hand is moving towards or away from the sensor respectively.

The readings from the flex sensors is used to remotely control other output devices, in this case, a programmable LED whose colour and brightness varies according to the finger flexing patterns.

There are three EspressoLite ESP8266 devices, one on the glove, one acting as a router or Access Point, and the last one controlling the LED acting as an output device.